


Regrets and Other Things

by criesthenwrites



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: F/F, Gallavich, M/M, Mexico, Reunions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-24 12:38:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9727229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/criesthenwrites/pseuds/criesthenwrites
Summary: Ian watched Mickey cross the border some time ago, and still misses the Milkovich to this day. He finds his way back in the desert, seeing if he can make amends with his past decisions.Post 7x11





	1. Messy

Ian Gallagher spent most nights at the bar since the road trip. He didn’t always drink. He was no Lip, definitely not a Frank. Some nights he got only a spritzer, others a glass of shitty wine. Tonight was something slightly stronger, he had tomorrow off. His job was a small piece of clarity in his now seemingly useless life. Routine was told to be essential for Ian’s sickness, but the everyday pattern seemed to be the thing driving Ian crazy. 

The Alibi was somewhat crowded on this Thursday night, it’s normal. The regulars existed of the bottom feeder drunks of South Side Chicago; the ones who didn’t care who ran a bar as long as they had a cheap drink in their dirty hands to numb the demons. Svetlana managed to hook some new comers, her boobs and dangerous accent seemed to be everyone's favorite show. These new comers only made up for the ones lost once Kev and Vee stormed off. 

Not that it mattered anymore. 

Ian, now at the ripe age of twenty one, legally swirled the ice in his drink with his finger as he listened to Svetlana curse her unfortunate situation. 

“I just got things good for Yevgeny, now we must leave? America supposed to be land of free, new beginnings? I call it bullshit. Put that on Yelp.” Svetlana’s English had improved considerably along with her knowledge of the modern world. She was filling someone’s empty beer glass at the moment, so mad she accidentally let it spill over. She cursed in Russian, slamming the glass down, making a bigger mess. She yelled the foreign profanity louder, picking up a dirty dish towel to sop up the mess. 

“What are you talking about? What happened?” Ian questioned, brows pulling together.

“Like you care. Good for nothing shit ex-husband got locked up and you disappear just like him from Yevgeny’s life. Both dead beat dad as you American’s say.” Each choppy word was like a punch in the gut for Ian. He had left the baby behind in pursuit of forgetting Mickey. After learning about Mickey, then leaving Mickey again, he decided to stop dicking around and get back to what mattered. Leaving the fake distractions behind of occupied sheets behind. 

“I’m here now, eh? Have been for a small while now. Now tell me, why are you guys leaving?”

Svetlana stared him down over her studded ruby glasses, the chains swinging and brushing her exposed cleavage. Ian didn’t look away, but kept eye contact with a forced crooked grin. He has been hanging around her like some kind of Sheila these past few months, so he’s been used to the scary stare downs. He also had alcohol on his side. 

“Fine. Stupid government find out about fake lesbian marriage. I leave in two days.” 

Ian gaped dumbly for a few seconds before shaking his head slightly, “Shit, Lana. Where you gonna go? Back to Russia?”

“No, you dumb fuck.” She responded with a bitter laugh.

“Then where?”

Svetlana didn’t answer at first, she pulled a glass away from a passed out customer and began to clean it, “Thinking about out of country, maybe? Much closer than Russia.”

“Mexico?”

Svetlana only shrugged. Ian decided not to press too much on the topic, but he began to feel a familiar burning in the pit of his stomach. Mexico was a big place, but it represented something much bigger for Ian. Mexico meant Mickey. 

“Okay, so what about the bar?”

“You want it?”

Ian choked on the sip he was taking, feeling it burn his throat, “You’re shitting me.”

“Yeah, I am. I’ll give it back to Vee. I only took bar to help our family, they just got all touchy and left. Now that it will no longer benefit me and Yev, it will help their family. I did love her.” Throughout her nonchalant tone, Ian heard a deeper truth and pitied her. He knew a thing or two about sacrifice. 

Ian drained his drink, throwing his head back and debated on buying another one. Before he could ask, Svetlana took his glass and threw it in the sink with raised eyebrows. She knew first hand how it was like when Ian was drunk, it wasn’t a very pretty sight. It was messy. She witnessed his toxic mixture of medication and one too many drinks. It involved yelling, crying, and self hatred. Very messy. 

“You’re done for the night. We are all done.” She yawned, “Out, everyone out! Yevgeny needs sleep. Leave!” She called, banging her hand on the table. Lots of grumbles and protests emerged from the small crowd, it was only nine in the evening. 

“Oh shut up. I will be gone soon enough.” She said quieter, causing a few cheers by the closer audience. 

Ian felt a small pain in his chest, goodbyes have been hard. He looked down behind the bar at a young blonde toddler playing in a small play pen. The toddler owned a striking pair of pale blue eyes and was developing a smile that reminded Ian a lot if his father. Back in the day, Mickey would sometimes mention no one could prove Yevgeny being his son, and he swore it unlikely due to his wife’s profession at the time. Ian could promise the proof to anyone. You just had to look at the kid. 

The thought of Yevgeny disappearing behind the same southern border, following his father’s footsteps, made Ian want to vomit. 

He threw a ten on the table and put his wallet back in his emt jacket’s pocket, “Hey, just let me know when you’re about to leave. Just give me a heads up, okay?” 

Svetlana replied with a sad smile, nodding as she lifted her son in her arms. “I have to put him upstairs, and I am exhausted. Please clean up and lock doors, I have to do some paperwork for Veronica.” She didn’t wait for his reply, but instead started upstairs towards the apartment, her boots stomping loudly on the old stairs. 

Ian couldn’t stop thinking about the small Milovich family living somewhere under the sun in a foreign country, the three of them. He missed Mickey with every part of his body. It was much easier knowing Mickey was in prison, frozen in time behind a set of bars. He couldn’t get in trouble in there. He couldn't go off and live life, making Ian jealous, when he was locked up. It held Mickey in a safe place, a small box, in the back of his mind. Safe. Their last shared moments in the desert blew up that box, obliterating it. Their last kiss was a sweeter moment for the boys, so sweet it burned a hole straight through his chest. A perfect bullet wound. In the shape of Mickey Milkovich in a dress. 

Ian walked home in the warm summer air, still thinking about Mickey in Mexico. Carefree. Not having to worry about Ian and his medication. Now he pictured Mickey with his son on the beach, no matter how unlikely that might be. 


	2. Puzzle Pieces

The light shining through the blinds woke him up before the noise had. The noise involved Liam laughing loudly at the television and Fiona talking angrily in what Ian assumed to be a business call. Most likely due to the conversation he shared with Svetlana, Ian dreamed of Mexico. It was a recurring dream , one of the only few he remembered. 

It always began with Ian in the desert, it always took him a while to realize it was Mexico. He was looking for Mickey, panicking at the sight of the hundreds of “have you seen me?” flyers. He was driving, stuck behind a line of cars, waiting to cross the border. After each check point, he would end up driving towards another. A never ending loop. He was also wearing a wig, which seemed to try and slip off in front of all the national security members. It was a true nightmare. 

This dream had effected Ian a lot. It came to him about a week after Monica’s funeral. It rested uneasy in his stomach. Although he said goodbye Mickey at the border, he subconsciously promised himself he would see Mickey again. Although it was an elaborate  fantasy, Ian gave into the idea of it. He took up Spanish lessons, using up a small fraction of his savings. Ian has always been known to study something until he perfected it, this time was no exception. 

Ian’s phone dinged from his night stand and he stretched across the small twin bed to check the notification. Svetlana’s small profile picture showed up next to an even smaller text.

\--Leaving tomorrow. 

Ian slumped his head back onto his pillow, taking his hand through his cropped red hair. Sighing deeply, he responded.

\--How

He was too tired to add punctuation and too downcast to care. Ian wasn’t ready to say bye to Yevgeny, he had grown even more attached to the kid over the past months. He had forgotten how much he loved him, just as he had forgotten how much he loved Mickey. He didn’t want to say goodbye to someone else he loved for good. 

\--Made myself passports and i.d. Mexico. 

Ian remembered her small I.D business she ran through Kev and Vee’s when she lived with them. Through his tired brain, small puzzle pieces clicked into place. 

He didn’t question it at the moment, but Ian had always wondered where Mickey had gotten his fake paperwork. Ian knew Mickey had no money and no connections that would give Mickey the goods for free, especially without trading him to the feds for some heavy funds. Of course Svetlana helped him. She owned him for all the inside jobs and she was the connection. Ian would bet anything she knew where Mickey was.

He jumped out of his small bed and pulled on a pair of jeans over his boxers in a hurry. He buckled his belt while slipping on his shoes, willing himself to be at the Alibi already. He rushed past a sleepwalking Lip making his way to the the bathroom. 

“What the fuck, man?” He muttered through the cigarette resting between his lips. 

“Talk to you later, I have to run.” Ian was halfway down stairs by the time Lip was ready to answer. 

He kissed Liam on the head and ruffled Carl’s curly hair. Fiona smiled at him from her position by the counter, the phone between her shoulder and ear, raising an eyebrow towards Ian grabbing a banana in a quick pace. He managed to make it to the Alibi in a short amount of time. The place was closed and locked, but Ian pulled out his set of keys, using the silver one Svetlana bestowed upon him. 

“Svetlana!” He called, voice echoing in the empty bar. He heard a pair of heels stop on the wooden planks above his head. “Svetlana!” He was making his way upstairs in a heated fashion. 

“Shh! You wake baby!” Svetlana was packing, her small loft looking sadder and emptier than usual. 

“Promise me you’ll tell me the truth. Promise.”

“What are you going on about, orange boy?” She looked annoyed, taking off her glasses to give him the look. 

“Do you know where Mickey is?” Ian watched her demeanor change drastically. 

She shrugged, lifting her shoulders back to their normal height, “Of course, who else would I send to my girls?” As she spoke these words, she knew she was doing Ian dirty, so she put up a front so she wouldn’t feel so low. Ian felt as though he’d been punched in the nose, hit with a truck, shot in the ass, and pistol whipped, all at the same time. It felt as though Svetlana single handedly sucked the air from his lungs with a power vacuum. 

The fact that he now knew where Mickey was- at least knew how to know where he was. The fact that Mickey had the capability of being found, made Ian feel incredibly lost. Where was he now once Ian was in the position to find him? 

“What the fuck?” Ian yelled the only words he could find in his brain, he was completely aghast. From the corner of the room, Yevgeny started to whimper building it into a full blown scream.

Ian sighed deeper than he had in his entire life, suddenly feeling ten years older. His eyes followed Lana as she made her way to her her son, cradling him as she repeated a hushing noise. He couldn’t comprehend what the woman told him, almost believing she spoke the words in Russian. 


	3. Behavioral Problems

“You knew? Where he was. The whole time?” Ian was seething, the fact that Svetlana was hiding the whereabouts of Mickey made him feel like a ticking time bomb. Any moment he was going to explode.

“What were you going to do? You stayed and he went. You didn’t care.” She answered factually, placing the now calm Yevgeny down and started folding baby clothes. She acted like she wasn’t affected or guilty at all of what she kept from Ian.

“Is he safe?” The question escaped Ian’s lips with a whimper, Anger leaving leaving his body for a moment. “How is he?”

“He is good. Taking care of my girls in Mexico, golden men and sunburnt tourists love Russian women where they don’t belong. He’s happy. A pimp.” She said pimp in a mocking tone, with a small smile playing on her lips. Ian smiled a bit too, remembering how proudly Mickey ran the old Rub n’ Tug. Mickey saw himself as a business man back then, wearing the title with satisfaction. Ian should've guessed, Svetlana’s old employees kinda disappeared after the third bust, then the officers came, demanding passports or green cards. She sent them to Mexico.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Reality returning and the smile fading.

“Like I said, I thought you didn’t care.” She was still avoiding eye contact, doing busy nothings with her hands. The anger returned, full blast, hitting him like a baseball bat.

“How the fuck could you think that?” Ian was shaking, he hadn’t felt this much anger surge through him since his manic days. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was in control of the situation. Besides his own siblings, Mickey was the one person Ian would always care about, and the fact that anyone would think differently, literally made him dumbfounded.

“You think I don’t know the story? You disappeared for three days, no? And then you came back, leaving him alone.” She looked at him now, with accusing eyes. Ian obviously knew everything he was being told, but he was nonetheless surprised at the judgment in Svetlana’s tone.

Ian felt guilty, every day. He wished Mickey wasn’t a federal runaway. He wished that he didn’t pick up Monica’s toxic genes. He wished he was able to cross that border with Mickey, living happily ever after. But Mickey was on every cop’s hit list, Ian did have a disease that he was finally in control of, and Ian was not in any position to leave when Mickey popped out of the blue.

“Life is not black and white, Svetlana. There are no simple yes and no’s when it comes to life changing decisions.” Ian couldn’t talk anymore, and decided to leave before he said or did anything that he knew he would regret. He took the steps slowly, head pounding, leaving Svetlana behind confused. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact what he thought was now true. Mickey wasn’t exactly in reach, but he was reachable.

Ian made it to the street, feeling the sun rays hit his back, feeling like fire. He was wearing jeans and a wife beater, yet he couldn’t think of a better time to run. His old vans slapped flatly on the concrete, sending slight shocks of pain up his shins. His jeans hung heavy, making the friction difficult to keep a fast and steady pace, his light tank top began to stick to his skin with sweat. He made his way to a stop light, jogging in place along a small morning crowd.

“Crack heads,” Ian heard a bystander mutter under their breath with disgust. He barely cracked a smile, taking off faster when he saw the walk sign flash white.

Running prevented Ian from thinking too much about what happened, and allowed himself to concentrate on his steps instead. That’s why when he was surprise when he ended up at the baseball dugouts, his subconscious had brought him there.

Ian watched kids play with the sand across the field through chain linked fences. Eight year olds bored out of their minds. There was one player, more focused than the others, hitting the ball with a ting. He sprinted past two bases, making the the second base kid furious as the runner slammed into him. The small kid through his mitt on the ground and forced his fist into the poor kid’s stomach. Adults rushed the field, separating the two kids. Ian was reminded of another kid being taken off the team for behavioral problems.

Mickey told Ian that under the bleachers was their spot, yet the place that stuck in Ian’s mind as “their spot” would always be here. Some of their best moments existed here. Their last moment before things got hideously messy existed here.

Ian walked back home, the dugout was only about 10 minutes away. He was still refusing to allow himself to think of Mickey, distracting himself with any small detail he could think about anything else.

He walked inside, facing Lip nursing a water bottle and another cigarette, Fiona, Kev, and Vee. He took the water from Lip, dehydrated from his run, and finished the bottle in a matter of seconds.

“Hey there Ian! You’d never guess what happened. Kev and Vee got the bar back!” Fiona greeted with a giant smile.

“Wow guys, that’s, that’s awesome. Wow.” Ian reminded himself to act surprised.

Fiona raised an eyebrow, her smile dropping.

“He knew.” Said Kevin with a disappointed shake of his head.

“Of course he knows,” Sassed Veronica, hand on her hip. “Being best friends with the enemy and all.” She pursed her lips in a frowning nature.

“Doesn’t matter, baby! I don’t have to work at a gay bar, and sorry Fi, but Veronica quits.” Ian laughed and high-fived Lip.  
The small crowd laughed and began chatting, noise building up in the crowded kitchen.

“Guys,” Ian intervened quietly, not breaking through the noise barrier. “Guys!”  
The room silenced, “Dude, what the fuck?” Lip laughed nervously.

“I’m moving to Mexico.”

“What?” All voices asked in unison, almost all thinking it was a joke.

“Svetlana is on the run and has connections in Mexico. That’s why she is leaving the bar to you guys. I’m sick of this place, I’m moving with her. I’ll figure it out and I’ll keep in touch. Please don't try and change my mind.”


End file.
